


I Am Enchanted By His Insolence

by Owaya1



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Cuddles, Fluff, I have no excuses, Iwaizumi Hajime Is a Chill Pooch, Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru Fluff, M/M, Oikawa Tooru Is a Kitty Menace, POV Original Character, Pet au, Sorry?, Such Low-key Drama, Writer's Block, cat!oikawa, dog!Iwaizumi, lots of rambling, way too many OCs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-10-30 00:25:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10865220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Owaya1/pseuds/Owaya1
Summary: “So my cat brought home a dog,” I say into the phone. “It’s a funny story actually. Like, really improbable and full of stupid coincidences — that kind of funny, not haha funny."___Or that Cat!Oikawa Dog!Iwaizumi fic nobody actually wanted but y'all getting anyway.





	I Am Enchanted By His Insolence

**Author's Note:**

> Ayyy guys!  
> I think I should apologize? This fic is the product of me trying to break a case of writer’s block and basically failing miserably. It’s rough and un-betaed and I’m sorry. But I did churn out 4k so that’s something.  
> I feel like I might be breaking some major unwritten fandom laws with the OC POV and story arc but whatever. I do what I want.  
> Inspired by a combination of my current obsession with Iwaoi fanfic and Walter Adolphe Roberts sonnet ‘[The Cat](https://books.google.dk/books?id=WyoKu-4iSA4C&pg=PA58&lpg=PA58&dq=The+Cat#v=onepage&q=The%20Cat&f=false)’ which is pretty sweet so go check it out.

 

 

 

 

      “So, I bought a cat,” I say, the phone tucked under my chin as I carefully apply lacquer to my toenails. I’m not very good at it, the better part of my toes are now sporting hot pink, (sorry, _Far East Fuchsia_ ) and not pulling it off very well.

      There is a lot of noise at the other end of the line, a kettle gurgling, a baby babbling high-pitched nonsense and my best friend Brenda fussing over something, — probably her five-months-old son Benny.

      “Hmm?” Brenda says. She’s not really paying attention but I don’t particularly mind. She’s a new mother and at this point she simply enjoys the pretence of having time for these phone calls with me. So I continue rambling into the phone unconcerned by her lack of participation in the conversation. I’ve paid shrinks for this privilege actually, to just sit in a chair for an hour and talk about myself to someone who won’t offer unwanted critique or commentary. It is freeing, and Brenda does it better than most.

      “Yeah,” I tell her, “I brought him home last night. He’s really handsome too, like, crazy handsome. Out-of-my-league-handsome. You know, — for a cat. If he were a man I wouldn’t even try, you know? That kind of handsome.”

      Brenda hums noncommittally into he phone. She’s really good at that, humming at the right places even though she isn’t listening. If I didn’t know her so well I might even be fooled for a while.

      “He’s a year old. I got him from the kennel downtown, and there were like, _lists_ of people who wanted him. He’d only been up for adoption for a day too. It’s ridiculous. But apparently he is really taciturn. They said he gets along with other cats very sporadically, — sort of a hot ’n cold situation — and that he doesn’t get along with dogs _at all._ I was the first person who didn’t have other pets, so I got him. Pretty sweet huh?”

      Another hum right on cue, I sort of wonder if she does this when on the phone with her husband too and if he can tell. Phill is a nice guy, but he works as one of those insurance-guys — not the phone people but the math people — and he is probably the most boring person on earth. I’d probably be a master hummer too if was married to him.

      “His name is Oikawa Tooru. I’m serious; his previous owner gave him his own surname. Isn’t that funny? But I sort of get it you know, looking at him; he’s like, regal. He looks like a cat with his own surname. I could rename him of course, — he doesn’t really respond to his name either way — but I kind of like it.

      “I think he’s adjusting pretty well so far; he sort of struts around a lot, and he’s like, crazy attention seeking, meowing at me all the time. One minute he’s in my lap begging for cuddles and the next he’s on top of the kitchen cabinets hunting for spiders or whatever. But the kennel people said he was the restless type, so I guess it’s not a sign of stress or anything.

      “That’s great,” Brenda says, sounding thoroughly distracted. “Listen Hon, Benny just— Oh no, — I’m sorry, I really got to go Honey.”

      “Sure thing,” I tell her fondly, “Good chat.”

      “For sure.” Brenda says, and hangs up.

      I frown critically down at my toes, and then look up as a cat-shaped shadow looms in over my poor mistreated nails.

      I yelp, and my hand shoots out defensively, but I’m no match for Oikawa’s finely honed cat reflexes and his delicate white paw meets the lacquer bottle in an elegantly preformed swat and suddenly there is hot pink nail polish all over the bathroom rug.

      We stare at each other, Oikawa looking inordinately self-satisfied. I get the sense that I was just bested by a cat and that he is now rubbing it in thoroughly. ‘ _Silly human’_ his smirk seems to say, ‘ _you can’t even catch a little bottle.’_

      “It’s a good thing you’re so pretty,” I tell him, because I feel like all that attention at the kennel must have gone to his head, “because your personality is _lousy.”_

_*_

      “Holy shit there is a cat in your apartment!” Ted, my off-again-on-again boyfriend exclaims. He sounds a little hysterical so I poke my head out of the kitchen and look at him. He’s currently locked in a staring-match with Oikawa, who seems to have stopped mid-stride en-route to the pantry where I keep his kibble.

      “Yeah,” I say, blinking, “I got him last week, didn’t I say?”

“You _got a cat? Why would you get a cat?”_ He’s still staring at Oikawa and it is making the cat’s hackles rise, his tail slowly puffing up to double size.

      “Um,” I interject, “You might want to look away. He will jump you if you keep that up.”

      “ _He’ll jump me?”_ Ted squeaks in disbelief and quickly looks at me, studiously turning his entire body away from the hard-eyed feline.

      “Yeah.” I say indifferently. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Oikawa, — he has sat down on the spot and curled his now unruffled tail around his paws, his previous destination abandoned in favour of eyeing Ted triumphantly. I could _swear_ Oikawa is smirking.

      “I didn’t know you were a cat person,” Ted says and wrinkles his nose.

      God, five years spent with this guy and he doesn’t know I’m a cat person. That is like, third date information, early relationship compatibility small talk. _Does he listen to Nsync? Is he a dog person? Does he take pineapple on his pizza?_ I remember asking these things, I remember thinking two out three was an acceptable score, — room for differences and all that.

      I _know_ Ted doesn’t much care for cats, I know that he is quasi-allergic to them and that he claims to get itchy whenever one brushes his trouser leg. I _know_ these things, it’s just that I may have momentarily forgotten (read purposely ignored) all this when I spied Oikawa’s photo on the kennel’s adoption site.

      “Well I am.” I say briskly, ignoring Oikawa’s increasingly sadistic smirk, and then sauntering back into the kitchen where I had been preparing vegetables before Ted interrupted.  

      “So what, are you the crazy cat lady now or something? What made you want a cat?” I purposely ignore the condescension in his voice.

      “I’ve always wanted a pet,” I tell him, “I bought this apartment because the building has a pet-friendly policy. I just never got around to it before now.” That last part is lie; I never brought home a pet before because I was waiting for Ted to move in first, so that when I got a dog it would have been _our_ dog. Now it’s _my_ cat instead, but it doesn’t feel as much as defeat as I thought it would. I should have done it ages ago.

      “He’s pretty isn’t he?” I continue with put-on cheer, because _someone_ has to lift the mood or we’ll end up watching old movies in sullen silence all night. Ted risks a peek at Oikawa, careful not to turn his head all the way, and then startles badly when Oikawa meows at him lazily. The two of them have been acquainted for all of five minutes and already Oikawa has my boyfriend thoroughly whipped. That’s more than I’ve managed in five years.

      “He’s…” Ted grimaces a little and I restrain myself from rolling my eyes at him. “I guess, yeah,” Ted manages at length, “Sort of flashy though, isn’t he?”

      He is. Oikawa Tooru is a super flashy cat, his long hazel fur is wavy and excessively well groomed and his white-gloved paws delicate and strong. I’m not going to admit to that though — not in front of Oikawa anyway, his ego does not need the endorsement.

      “He didn’t come with a pedigree or anything,” I tell Ted as I eye Oikawa suspiciously, he has begun a silent prowl towards my boyfriend’s ankles, his chocolate eyes locked on his goal. “I think it is just good genes.”

      “Wish you’d asked me first. You know how I get scratchy around cats,” Ted scratches his elbow pointedly and again I have to refrain from rolling my eyes. It is so god-awful hard to remember why I fell in love with this guy when he’s like this. I have to strain to come up with all the good things about him, — like his penchant for baking and the way smiles when he sketches and how his bad impersonation of my mother makes me laugh.

_‘I should break up with him,’_ I find myself thinking as Ted leaves later that evening, not even staying the night even though it has been days since we saw each other, his ankles now sporting neon band-aids, ‘ _for good this time, no more ‘just taking a break’._ The thought is mildly petrifying, but somehow, with Oikawa slinking eights around my own unmarked ankles, it doesn’t seem so unmanageable.

 

*

 

      Oikawa Tooru is an escape artist. He is Houdini in disguise. I’ll crack open a window — barely an inch worth of space, — and five minutes later he’ll be out on the ledge, fur unruffled and pristine, and he’ll be peering two stories down and contemplating jumping.

      I turn the apartment into fort Knox, — never opening windows without shutting him in another room first, — and instead he will somehow manage to slip out into the hallway and down the stairs as I prepare to leave for work, hiding under sofas or shelves and waiting for me to look away for _just_ a second.

      One time he manages to escape halfway down the street before I recapture him, — my knees going weak with relief as I press him desperately against my frantic heart. Oikawa yowls in discontent all the way home.

      “You could have been run over by a car!” I rant at him once I have him safely behind closed doors again. Oikawa stares at me sullenly. “There are dogs out there!” I try, but he just turns his back on me and goes to sleep, unimpressed by my arguments.

      “You are such a drama queen,” I accuse with a huff and Oikawa flicks his tail at me.

 

*

 

      “Maybe he used to be an outdoors cat,” Jeanine, my colleague-recently-turned-friend, suggests. We bonded over cats a couple of weeks ago and now we regularly go for coffee together during our lunch breaks. It is as if Oikawa is a people magnet, — effortlessly winning even the stoically uninterested over with his charms, — and somehow I benefit simply by association. The Instagram I created in his name a week ago already has more followers than my own. If cats are the kings who rule the Internet, then I suspect Oikawa is the great king to rule them all.

      “I don’t know,” I tell her, “His file said he would be fine in a spacious apartment, and my apartment is pretty specious. I mean, I have two bedrooms, — I even have a pantry for gods sake.”

      “Well, maybe he’s looking for company then. You said he sometimes gets along with other cats right? You should bring him over to meet Maki and Matsu, it’ll be like play date.”

      Maki and Matsu turn out to be the most sadistic pair of Bengals to ever have lived, and as such, it isn’t actually all that surprising when Oikawa manages to fit himself right in, — the duo tailing behind him curiously as he explores Jeanie’s house.

      In the course of an afternoon, the three of them manage to shred an entire roll of toilet paper, knock over two potted plants and almost give Jeanine’s fiancé a heart attack by executing an incredible coordinated ambush, — all three cats simultaneously jumping down on him from the suspended hatrack as he stepped through the front door.

      Oikawa looks so pleased with himself by the time we get home that I can’t help but count the day as a success.

      He is right back to his usual escape artist stunts the next day however, — this time almost slipping down the garbage shoot and me only narrowly managing to grab his hind legs in the nick of time. Neither of us is very pleased with the other for the remainder of the day.

 

 *

 

      It finally happens almost precisely two months after I bring Oikawa home: Oikawa Tooru manages to run away for real.

      I’m coming home late from work, sleepily trudging my way up the stairs, dreaming of a hot meal and Netflix in bed, maybe a cuddle session with Oikawa if he’s up to it. He must have been lying in wait, poised for me to open the door because I barely even crack it open before he has slipped between my legs and bolted down the stairs. I charge after him, hoping to god that I closed the main door below properly. I didn’t, and by the time I’m out on the street there is no sign of Oikawa anywhere.

      So I do what any devoted cat owner will do in such a situation and spend a solid minute panicking. Then I call in the cavalry, — by which I mean I call the only person whom I can imagine coming out at nine-thirty on a Wednesday evening to search for a cat.

      Jeanine, bless her heart, tows her fiancé along.

Together we manage to cover four whole streets and all their adjacent alleys, peering in under parked cars and behind dumpsters as we go. After three hours of fruitless searching though, we are all ready to call it quits, — me albeit with much pathetic sniffling and Jeanine patting my shoulder.

      “He’ll turn up, you’ll see,” Jeanine says, “Once we get some missing posters up someone will call. Knowing Oikawa he’s probably asleep in some old lady’s armchair right now.”

      “It might be a good thing we haven’t found him yet,” Jeanine’s fiancé chimes in unhelpfully, “If he had been run over we would have found him by now.” Jeanine stomps on his foot indiscreetly.

      “I’ll just take one more look around,” I say, fighting off a fresh bout of tears, “You two just head on home. I really can’t thank you enough for coming out tonight.”

      “Oh, you’d do the same for me and my boys,” Jeanine says confidently, and she’ is right, I totally would. Whoever said you don’t make new friends after you hit thirty.

They wave goodbye, and on a fluke I start down a street further away from my apartment than the ones we’ve been searching. It’s so incredibly unlikely that Oikawa will be here that my scrutiny of the dumpsters is half-hearted at best. It is then that I pick up on the sound of a dog braying and suddenly my heart is in my throat and I’m speeding towards the sound as quickly as my legs can take me.

      Of course Oikawa would pick a fight with a dog, _of course he would,_ and it sounds like a big dog too. I can imagine it now, Oikawa with his hackles up, hissing and spitting at a dog three times his size as they face off. He would never run away, no not Oikawa — he would stay and fight until he has broken his opponent’s will, — has them kneeling in the dirt before him in defeat. He’d sit there, licking the blood off his paws as the dog cower and shake.

      And maybe that’s how it will go, but what if it is that Ushijima dog I sometimes see around the neighbourhood, the giant Rottweiler with his toned muscles and pearl white fangs ready to bite and crush and kill. Oikawa huffs and puffs just watching Ushijima walk by on the sidewalk beneath his perch on the kitchen windowsill.

      Or what if it is the pair of Doberman that lives a block over — the sleek long-legged back one and the little orange Pincher with the hungry, hungry eyes. I run around a corner and sure enough there, on a stretch of grass between two buildings is Oikawa Tooru, and he is jumping manic circles around a large scruffy dog, yowling his lungs out.

      Okiawa darts forward, a paw raised to swat, and a shout builds in my throat as the dog tenses and — and gently shoves Oikawa onto his back with its snout, huffing when four sets of claws dig into its skull and sharp kitty teeth nibble playfully at its one floppy ear. The dog wags its tail.

      I come to a standstill, the shout dissipated and forgotten as I stare dumbfounded at my cat — my cat who _hates_ all dogs with unabridged passion but apparently makes an exception for _this_ dog. I tentatively approach them and carefully pry Oikawa off the dog, mindful of his claws and the dog’s teeth and trying my hardest to tell whether or not my cat has done any damage because people get sued for that kind of stuff these days.

      Surprisingly, Oikawa goes willingly into my arms, pliant and happy save for the barest hint of a tail flicking and the way his eyes are fixed on the dog who sits stoically at my feet, snorting whenever Okinawa’s tail meets his nose.

      “Um,” I say, and look around for whoever is responsible for the dog, but the street is empty. He must be a German Shepard mix or something, all black spiky fur and one sharp ear standing to attention, the other a sloppy crooked mess. “Dude,” I say, because the dog is wearing a thick green collar with tags and everything. “Did you run away too?”

      Carefully, I reach down and get a finger under the dog tags. I don’t get my hand bitten off, and Oikawa squirms in my arms but doesn’t make a break for it so I count it a win.

      ‘Iwa-chan’ the tag reads, but the phone number on the back has been mostly corroded away and only the area code is readable. I stare mutely at the tag and then at the dog.

      “Dude,” I say again, this time incredulous, “You live all the way across town.”

      Iwa-chan just looks at me like this should be obvious and then nips at the tail Oikawa is still persistently aiming in his face. If anything, this only serves to aggravate the tail flicking.

      I stand there for a while, feeling responsible for the dog, but unable to come up with anything I can do. I have my arms full with Oikawa, and there is nothing around that could potentially be used as leash. At length I resolve to go knock on someone’s door and ask for some string or something. _A rope preferably_ , I think to myself, because Iwa-chan could probably snap most dog leashes without much effort on his part.

      All my worries prove completely unfounded however, because I’ve barely taken three steps before Iwa-chan has stood up and obediently gone to heel.

      And just like that, the dog follows me home.

 

 *

 

      “So my cat brought home a dog,” I say into the phone. I am trying to sort through all the new insurance papers you apparently have to have if you want to consider yourself a responsible pet owner, — but all the words are blurring together nonsensically and blabbering at Brenda over the phone is so much more interesting.

      “It’s a funny story actually. Like, really improbable and full of stupid coincidences — that kind of funny, not haha funny. So anyway, Oikawa finds this dog while on his little escapade, and the dog follows us home, and then Iwa-chan — that’s the dog — he just goes straight into my bedroom and goes to sleep on my bed and Oikawa just sort of flops down on top off him, and I end up sleeping on the couch.” Brenda _‘hmms’_ at me on the other end of the line, so I decide to just ramble on.

      “So I take Iwa-chan down to the kennel the next day, — because his tags weren’t worth shit and I was hoping he’d have a chip or something, — and I end up having to take Oikawa too because _apparently_ Iwa-chan _refuses_ to so much as move a muscle unless Oikawa goes too. So I take them both, and it turns out that, yes, Iwa-chan does indeed have a chip, and no the kennel people do not have to search the database or anything because apparently different people have been bringing him in for weeks.

      “Isn’t that crazy? Like, guys, if your dog runs away _that much_ then maybe give him some proper tags and _mend your damn fence_ or something. So anyway, I call his owner up and you can immediately tell that he has been desensitized to whole process, — the man I talked to was all like, _‘where are you?’_ and ‘ _I’ll come pick him up in an hour’_ and he didn’t sound as if I’d just found his missing dog at all _._

      “And I guess that was my cue to leave, you know? The kennel people said they’d handle Iwa-chan until the man came for him and I had to get to work, but I barely even got out the door before Oikawa threw the biggest hissy fit I’ve ever seen — I thought he was having a seizure or something — so I hurry back inside to get help and he just calms right back down again.

      “At that point I was sort of getting the picture you know? Because _obviously_ these two had developed some massively unmanly crushes on each other overnight, and who was I to stand between star-crossed lovers anyway. So I ended up staying at the kennel, waiting for Iwa-chan’s owner.

      “And this is the funny part yeah? Because in comes this wreck of a man, obviously exhausted and three kinds of dishevelled, and he spots me sitting there with his dog at my feet and Oikawa sort of using Iwa-chan as a swing set and he just stops short and then breaks down crying.”

      I frown down at my papers, wrinkling my nose. Oikawa has at some point come slinking out of my bedroom and folded himself onto the chair next to me. He looks sort of pouty and put out.

      “Alright,” I admit, “that wasn’t the funny part, — that part was actually rather uncomfortable and all-round awkward. The funny part comes after the man stops crying. See, it turns out that Iwa-chan’s real owner was this man’s uncle, but he recently deceased in a horrible traffic accident, and this man — Jerald, — he adopted Iwa-chan afterwards to keep him in the family. But Jerald's uncle also used to have a cat named Oikawa Tooru whom he had raised with the dog from kitty-hood — or puppy-hood or whatever — and Jerald had to sell Oikawa after the accident because his wife is like, aggressively allergic to everything feline.

      “Crazy huh? It’s like something out of a Nicholas Sparks novel, — or Finding Nemo, — isn’t it. But there is more, because apparently Iwa-chan has been running away every few days ever since they separated him from Oikawa, and with the funeral and everything, Jerald was pretty messed up about it all and he said they were probably going to have to give Iwa-chan away too because it was obviously not working out.

      “And um,” I pause, feeling sheepish, “now I own a dog.” I glance up as the sound of paws clicking against hardwood floor meets my ears, and Iwa-chan comes trotting out of my bedroom, looking frowny and long-suffering. He sighs loudly as he positions himself in between the two occupied chairs and Oikawa immediately latches himself around Iwa-chan’s neck in a surprisingly good emulation of an octopus and starts nipping at Iwa-chan’s one floppy ear. Iwa-chan just sighs again, louder this time and frowns harder.

      “Oikawa has stopped trying to run away after I brought Iwa-chan home.” I tell Brenda and grimace down at my pets as their low-key PDA turn into a full-on grooming session. “I still don’t trust him around open windows but he is not laying siege to my front door anymore so that’s something. And I’m still not really a dog-person but Iwa-chan is so majorly chill that you’d have to be insane not to be an Iwa-chan-person. He, I don’t know, sort of makes Oikawa more bearable to be around? Less needy and taciturn I think, — or maybe he doesn’t and it is just that less of it is directed towards me? I don’t know but it works.”

      Oikawa and Iwa-chan has by now disintegrated into a pile of fur on the floor, Iwa-chan sprawled on his back with Oikawa starfishing out on top of him and purring like a chainsaw. I make a point of grimacing at them and looking horrified but I also make sure to snap a few pictures of them for later posting.

      I can hear the SpongeBob theme blaring on the other end of the line and Brenda puttering with something in the kitchen. “I broke up with Ted.” I offer at length, even though I could easily have kept on blabbering about my pets for another solid twenty minutes before running out of material.

      “Oh Honey,” Brenda says sympathetically, “It was about time.”

      And _oh_ , maybe she really had been listening all along.

 

 

 

[Fin]

 

 

 

 


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